Circus Freaks
by Rookey
Summary: Led by her curiosity, an unwitting Sam Manson finds herself cast into a reality she thought could only exist within the relative safety of her own nightmares. As Sam struggles to survive the horrors set before her, she endeavors to uncover the long-since buried secretes behind Circus Gothica and everything they stand for. First fan fiction, AlternateEnding!AU for Control Freaks.
1. Extended Summary

_**Extended summary...**_

* * *

_Circus Freak._

_Circus. _

_n. A traveling company of acrobats, trained animals, and clowns that gives performances, typically in a large tent, in a series of different places._

_Freak:_

_v. To __behave or cause to behave in a wild and irrational way, typically because of the effects of extreme emotion, mental illness, or drugs. _

_adj. To experience or cause to experience frightening hallucinations or feelings of paranoia, especially as a result of taking a drug._

The fact that any one person could use these two words in the same sentence should have been your first clue, dear reader. For, if my presumptions of the two words spelled separately, defined separately, however used in the same contexts are not incorrect, I would assume nothing good could come of the situation to follow.

However, those are _my _presumptions. Since, at this point, I have completely destroyed the forth wall like toddler destroying his first birthday cake or a hunter mangling a deer for no particular reason other than to grow a few cup sizes, I might as well hand my presumptions over to you, for whom this story is written _for. _

The reader.

The reader, dear reader, yes I'm looking at you. The teenager sitting on that old, damn near broken couch with a cell phone in one hand and a remote in the other. The one with the hair clearly reminiscent of just waking up in the morning. The one riding in the back of the car on their way to dinner with your phone in your hand and nothing else to do. The one sitting alone in their room, the scars of bad fiction running bone deep like battle wounds, you.

Whoever dared pick up this book, I warn you now. I foretell to you of a tale of drunken nightmares and crackpot-horror.

With this, I give what I know to you, a story of underpaid, sexually frustrated crybaby teenagers and an intoxicated ghost or two. I tell to you the story of a forgotten friendship and a wannabe necrophiliac, along with the difference between their ways and the ways of an _actual _necrophiliac.

I tell of crazed kids with blacklight vomit dripping from their chins and on to the floor, midget tightrope-walkers and elephant tap-dances singing along to those eerie old songs you listened to as a child.

Please, if you wish, dear reader, follow me as I explain to you what a _circus freak _really is.

* * *

_Tbc..._

_**Hello! I'm fairly new to this site and I plan on setting up my stories somewhat differently than what I've seen. This first chapter is a summary, and depending on the response, I'll keep it up. Updates may come somewhat slowly, as I have a busy schedule and I tend to write as inspiration comes, and just about anyone knows that inspiration comes at random intervals. Love to hear your comments! **_

**_Rookey _**


	2. Underage Drinking

**_Hi, miss me? Please, take this. It's just a prologue and the only chapter featuring Danny's perspective. Enjoy :) _**

* * *

**Prologue**

**Underage Drinking**

* * *

_Underage Drinking: the action of which a minor (or person[s] under the age of twenty-one) consumes or possesses any beverage or product containing alcohol. Overconsumption of such products, amplified at a younger age, can lead to severe nausea and vomiting, potentially violent or nonsensical behavior, unconsciousness and, on occasion, death. _

* * *

In all likelihood, Daniel Fenton was probably drunk.

Not that he would really know for sure, because he had never been drunk before. Be it as it may, he had no recollection of the time before he had woken up that day in the damp, dark room he had found himself in.

No, wait, my previous statement is horribly inaccurate.

By saying _"woken up," _I would be implying that he had; somehow, regained conscious thought and was somewhat in control of his current state. Saying that he had "woken up," would be saying that he had started awake, that he had opened his eyes and found himself in complete control of his body. It would be saying that his vision wasn't dull, that he was aware of the gaping wound on his side, the broken knee he had sustained, and the future concussion he would have no recollection of in the time to follow.

If this was the meaning of the word "awake," then Danny Fenton was by no means _awake. _

He was stirred, sure, maybe more _aware _than he was before, but he was in no way control of his position.

He was dimly conscious of the indistinct ache in his arms. The numbing feeling of the blood falling from the limbs and rushing back towards his torso, which meant his arms were suspended somewhere above his head. He could hear the rusty _clink _of chains clinging against each other. However, he wasn't nearly aware enough to care.

He smelt the rusty scent of blood; he knew he was bleeding somewhere. But his whole body was numb. It felt like the time when his parents took him to get his wisdom teeth removed not too long ago. At some point during the surgery, the anesthesia had worn off and it had felt similar to what he was feeling now.

_That was some party. _

Danny had meant to say that out loud, but he couldn't find the will or the strength to move his mouth. It should have concerned him, he knew, but he was too tired to care. But he knew he _should care, _and the fact that he didn't, bothered him.

He had been at a party, right? Danny thought so. Yeah, he was pretty sure he was at a party. He remembered being ecstatic over the invite.

What… else did he know?

Danny fought hard at the exhaustion pulling at the corners of his mind. _Facts. _He was looking for facts. Facts… right—facts. Facts that could lead him to the reasons behind his current… situation. Whatever that situation was.

He established the fact that he was at a party. Did he get drunk? Did someone spike his food? Was there something in the _air? _No, that's stupid. There wasn't anything in the air - no way. So far as Danny could assume, he felt as though he was alone in this strange… place. If something had been in the air, surely he wouldn't be alone here.

He had to have been drugged. But… did he drink anything? Eat anything? No, he hadn't. There's no way he had. Jazz would have _flipped_ if she found out Danny had been drinking at his first party. No way in hell would Danny have disobeyed his overbearing sister over something so _stupid. _

Wait, wait, wait. Danny blinked away the spots that had begun to invade his vision from the mental strain he had been enduring. He _did _drink something, didn't he? He remembered it now. Some party guests had all but forced him to down some…. Some… what was it? Some new-age sparkling water? Some alcoholic beverage he had so strategically avoided up until that very moment? Something… something bad.

And it was pink, which meant it was _really_ _bad_. No, it might have been red. The thought momentarily confused him. It wasn't anywhere close to Valentines Day—why was everything pink and red? He remembered seeing a _lot _of it. Red, especially. And black. That may have been there too.

Where was this party again? For the life of him, Danny couldn't remember. His subsequent memories were murky at best, but he did remember having quite possibly the worst migraine he's ever had. His head was quite literally on _fire. _He was seeing red, he recalled, and spitting blood into the bathroom sink.

Oh. Yeah, that's right. There was blood. There was definitely blood. Danny dully remembered the feeling of it pooling around his bloodshot eyes, streaming down his nose and gathering into an awful-tasting puddle in his mouth. It dripped steadily into the bathroom sink and stained his shirt bright crimson in the fluorescent light.

But the question was… why? Had something burst inside his skull? Was he dead? _Oh God… _was he _dead?! _There's no way…!

Wait!

There… there was a train. Yeah, a train. But why on earth would there be a _train? _Did Amity Park even _have_ a railroad? There may have been a slim chance, but Danny couldn't remember one way or the other.

Was there a… tent? Yeah, there was, he recalled. So, a train and a tent? Where the hell _was _he?

He started when he heard a door open.

Danny tried to shuffle away from the sudden sound, but he hadn't gotten far before he had at least partially returned to his senses. It was as if moving on his own had stirred his remaining consciousness to surface.

He was suddenly, painfully aware of the stabbing ache in his head, the furious, throbbing pain in his knee, and the numbing and sticky feeling producing from his side. He felt like he was on fire, in a way that was far less than pleasant.

Danny could do nothing but cry out.

But there was no way he could have known that making any sort of noise was the _worst _thing he could have possibly done.

In that moment, there was an angry gasp and a string of ill-worded curses aimed at the young teenager chained to the wall in this place Danny was only just becoming more and more aware of.

However, Danny's ears were ringing too loudly to pick up anything other than a few words before the unholiest shade of blood red had consumed his vision and he knew no more.

_"Obey, slave. And I'll let you live." _

* * *

_Tbc..._

_**...Fairly short, I know, and I apologize for that. This is a prologue though, so hopefully things will pick up in the near future. **_

_**To be completely honest, I started writing this on a whim, so I don't have much for a detailed plot. I'm thinking one over right now, so wish me luck :) And, by the way, this is a slight AU, which I will go more into detail about in chapter one. Love to hear your comments! **_

_**-Rookey **_


	3. The Kübler-Ross Model

**Hi! Sorry for the late update, life decided to be a pain in the ass. ****couple of notes before we start this chapter, this is an AU, primarily involving Sam and her relationship (or lack thereof) with Danny and Tucker and the results. Thus, making this fic an ****alternate ending!AU for Control Freaks. This will hopefully be kind-of explained. I'm also screwing with the episode order, so I'd just say to go with it if you're confused.**

**Disclaimer: ****I do not own the show mentioned, nor any familiar characters, scenes, ideas, products, items, or materials of any kind. However, I _do _own any original characters, landmarks, ideas, concepts, and the overall plot of this fan fiction. **

* * *

**Chapter one**

**The Kübler-Ross Model**

* * *

_The Kübler-Ross Model: [Or the five stages of grief] is a series of emotional stages experienced by survivors of an intimate's death, wherein the five stages are denial, anger, bargaining, depression and lastly, acceptance. Rarely will one not reach the fifth stage of grief, and said individual[s] may remain within the four previous stages with no end in sight. _

* * *

It was a hot day. Really, it was devastatingly hot, but not unforeseen in its nature.

The small town of Amity Park, Ohio was in the midst of a massive heat wave, another unexpected weather mishap in a series of unexpected weather mishaps. In fact, it was not all that uncommon for the town to experience such unpredictable patterns throughout the year. It was now commonplace for the meteorologists on the local cable channels to be rather unreliable in terms of doing their jobs, and as such the people of the town did little more about it then take the weather as it came. Play it by ear, as the saying goes, I believe.

That's what Samantha Manson was doing now. Initially, she hadn't planned to stop by The Skulk and Lurk. She had put her money on a partially cloudy day, with light winds and what felt like an once-in-a-lifetime chance for rain—just as the surprisingly reliable weather application on her phone had claimed. She wanted to spend her Friday afternoon doodling in her ever-faithful sketchbook, under the canopy of her favorite ancient oak tree in one of the more abandoned areas of the city's local park, and enjoy the way the wind sounded as it danced through the leaves.

But predictability was not the lifestyle of a resident in Amity Park. You didn't move to Amity Park if you anticipated a peaceful, day-to-day, month-to-month life in the same house, with the same roof, with the same blacktop road and the same little green street markers on every corner. That just wasn't the way things worked.

So of course, the day turned out nothing like Sam expected. Well, she _did _expect it, sadly, but it never hurt to hope for better.

That's her reason for being here, in her favorite gothic bookstore on the corner of Salem Boulevard and Elm Street (and she was quite aware of the unoriginal street names, however as a resident of the town, she found them more ironically amusing than anything else). She was one of many to turn up at the small shop, Goths and non-Goths alike seemed to be milling around the joint.

When it was this God-awfully hot outside, when heat waves were wafting off the cement and even a short walk from one's house to one's car could cause a devastating sunburn to those susceptible to it, and when the pools hadn't yet opened, people turned up here, at the Skulk and Lurk—the _only _place the town had to offer with a decent air conditioning system.

Stupid, wasn't it, how only _one_ store in the entirety of a _city _could have the decency to keep the air cool in the summer and warm in the winter. Sam thought so. She was never a fan of people, especially this amount, all crammed into a small space and crowded by books.

She was suddenly feeling slightly claustrophobic, but Sam had no reason to brave the scorching heat either. She was attempting for what she thought was the less of the two evils presented before her.

However, she was hoping — waiting, more accurately — for a halfway decent excuse to leave.

And, lo and behold, that excuse came, when her phone began vibrating arithmetically to the beat of her favorite Dumpty Humpty song.

Maybe the gods were watching over her with favor in their eyes.

Sam drew the phone from her purse and answered it in one fluid motion.

"What's up, Tuck?"

_"Hey, Sam."_ Tucker Foley, one of Sam's only remaining friends from high school, spoke through the receiver. _"You busy?"_

Sam glanced around at the quiet crowd that surrounded her not-so-comfortable armchair. The thing sunk too low, as if the last person to inhabit the chair weighed at least four times the amount of Sam herself—thus stretching the material beyond the point of beneficial use. Sam's ass nearly touched the ground, and the old novel she had taken to reading in her short stay here had begun to bore her.

"If by busy you mean getting stepped on by a bunch of dweebs at the Skulk and Lurk, then yeah, I'm _fabulously entertained." _She shot a mock two-fingered salute to the few wannabe's that had glared in her direction.

_"Then I'm sure you'd be heartbroken if I asked you to come hang out with Jazz and I at the Nasty Burger."_

_Jazz? _Sam thought with a pause. Jazz… when was the last time Sam had talked to _Jazz? _

Apparently her confusion transmitted over the phone as Tucker laughed. _"She flew in late last night. Jazz says hi, by the way." _

"Hi, Jazz!" Sam said in a slightly louder tone. "I'll be right over."

_"'Kay, see you then." _And with that, the line went dead.

Sam couldn't believe Jazz was in town. She was hardly _ever _in town. The girl had just ended her sophomore year at Cornell University in New York. It was two states over, but it was the closest Ivy League school to home Jazz could find.

She loved it in Amity Park, Sam knew, but ever since the disappearance of her younger brother four years ago, Jazz hardly ever visited. It was like Amity Park had brought back painful memories for her, and come to think of it, it probably did.

But whatever the reason Jasmine Fenton was here, Sam had to see her.

The girl dropped the dusty old novel she had been reading onto the floor before sweeping up her purse and exiting the refreshingly cool bookstore.

* * *

Sam's car was old, and she knew it. It wasn't the type of old that threatened her safety, however, and the word "antique" crossed Sam's lips several times when she was called to defend her baby before the condescending eyes of her parents.

It was a vintage car and Sam was proud to have acquired it on her own. With a little help from Tucker, she managed to revamp the engine to work like new and ride as smoothly as the most recent model on the market. To this day, Sam wasn't sure how the hell Tucker managed to get the car to run on electricity like a hybrid, but she assumed he didn't work alone. After all, he had only been going out with the daughter of the most brilliant inventors this town had to offer for two solid years. Sam guessed that may or may not have had something to do with it.

It wasn't ten minutes before Sam's pitch black 1969 Mustang Boss 429 rolled into the parking lot of the Nasty Burger. With all of the windows rolled down and the lulling sound of a heavy guitar solo radiating from the speakers, Sam was honestly reluctant to leave. She was finally cooling down, and the soft _faux _leather of her seats was far more comfortable than she cared to admit.

But in the end, she grit her teeth and did it, pulling the keys from the engine and swinging out of her car with as much grace as her combat boots would allow.

It wasn't very crowded at the Nasty Burger, all things considering. It was the most popular restaurant in the city, despite the less-than-apatizing name. It was a fast food joint and it was the officially unofficial hangout area for current and former Casper High students.

Sam appreciated it because of it's impressive vegetarian selection - which had gradually improved over the course of the last seven years, from nothing at all to a good solid half of their menu. Sam would be lying if she said that she didn't have a hand in that, though. Her consistent complaints and the not-so-subtle rallies that she held from time-to-time over the course of the last few years seemed to have created an impact.

Sam entered the restaurant with a flourish, swinging the cherry-red double doors wide open and marching inside. She was going to tackle Jazz in a hug, so help her God.

Sam found the couple seated in the far left corner of the not-so-crowded restaurant. The smell of grease and french fries wafted from the kitchen and filled the burger joint with the mouthwatering scent of food. There weren't many people to avoid as she marched to the back of the restaurant, just a few milling about and not giving her a second glance. And they shouldn't have. Sam was here so damn often, she might as well call it her second home.

Jazz and Tucker were seated next to each other in a booth. Tucker's arm was draped over Jazz's shoulder and they were unusually close to one another. Neither of them had noticed Sam yet, as they were both talking in hushed voices with mildly concerned expressions adorning their faces.

"Jazz!" The Gothic teenager exclaimed suddenly, waving at her from a few feet away. The couple snapped apart suddenly, and Jazz turned her eyes to Sam.

"Sam!" Jazz returned. She sprang from the booth like a rock from a slingshot and jumped up to hug other girl. For a moment, she reminded Sam of an excited child, not a nearly twenty-one year old woman. "It's been too long!"

"It has." Sam said as she returned the hug. She wasn't a hug-y person, but Sam would make an exception for Jazz. Jazz broke the gesture and returned to her seat next to Tucker.

Jasmine Fenton, in all of her lean, athletic and red-headed glory, was one of Sam and Tucker's closest friends. Daughter of the town's most brilliant inventors, strategists, paranormal researchers and ghost hunters, Jazz was fairly well-known throughout the community. She was slightly older, and it nearly broke Tucker's heart to see her graduate from Casper and move to New York while he and Sam were were juniors.

Sam was sad to see her go, but she wasn't the one crushing on her like Tucker was. Tucker had known her longer too. He grew up with her, in fact. Sam had only met Jazz during her sophomore year, back when she actually started hanging out with Tucker more. More than just in passing, anyway.

Sam supposed Jazz and Tucker's relationship really took of after freshman year. Tucker, after a while of them being friends, told Sam of the reasons behind it, although it wasn't anything Sam didn't already know, or didn't already guess. Freshman year, Tucker's best friend and Jazz's little brother disappeared under mysterious circumstances. The disappearance hit the town like a wrecking ball, but the Fentons and Tucker took the brunt of it. Sure, Sam was devastated by the disappearence too, but not nearly to the extent as Tucker and Jazz.

Sam wasn't friends with Danny Fenton. Sure, she talked to him every once in a while and they used to be closer in middle school, but he grew distant since the start of high school while Sam made other friends. He was a nice kid, Sam remembered, and he was shy too. She recalled that he was very smart, but she seemed to remember him falling out of line during their first year of high school. Vaguely, she remembered him falling asleep during class on more than one occasion and he hardly ever showed up on time. Sam had been mildly concerned, but like I mentioned, she wasn't friends with him, so she didn't bother herself with his daily affairs.

Sam wished she had paid more attention to Danny. It was one of her biggest regrets from high school. She wished she had followed through with their friendship rather than breaking off and trying to make friends of her own. She almost felt that she could have, somehow, prevented his disappearance if she had been there when it happened. It was kind of a pathetic wish, she knew, but that didn't stop her mind from wondering.

But ever since he was reported missing and the Fentons, alongside the Amity Park PD, set up a soon-to-be hopeless investigation, Tucker and Jazz grew closer and that was the end of it. Or the beginning, really, because their relationship skyrocketed from there.

"So, catch me up." Jazz asked with her trademark enthusiasm as Sam took her seat in the booth, facing the couple. "I haven't seen you since... what? Christmas?"

_Was it really Christmas? _Wow, it has been too long.

"I'm not saying I think you need to visit more," Sam said with a growing smile, "But I think you need to visit more."

"You know I would," Jazz responded, "but college tends to get pretty busy." Her thin, glossy lips pulled into a stunning smile.

"Eh, you like us better." Tucker joined into the conversation.

"Maybe a little bit." Jazz chuckled. "But seriously, what've I missed in Amity Park? Did we get thrown into another dimension? Town-wide undead invasions, supernatural storm patterns, ghostly diseases, anything?"

Sam and Tucker exchanged a look. The sad part about Jazz's statement was that she wasn't joking. All of the above had in fact happened before, undead invasions, supernatural storm patterns, ghostly diseases, paranormal attacks, just about anything else you could possibly think of. And yes, that includes the entire town getting thrown into another dimension.

Why do you think I said that predictability was not the lifestyle of a resident in Amity Park? Nothing predictable ever happened here, and whenever it was _predictable, _the entirety of the town knew that something was definitely wrong.

It was also why Amity Park in general got such unpredictable weather. Arctic cold fronts that flowed in from Canada seemed to revolve around Amity for what seemed like weeks before finally moving on to other towns. Heat waves, like this one, were always far too hot and far too dry for being as far away from the equator as they were.

These, along with several other occurrences an outsider would label as "weird" were merely side effects from being located so close to a portal to the realm of the dead.

But that's a story for another time.

"Not much has happened, actually." Sam told Jazz. "We're in a dry spell now."

"So I've heard," Jazz grumbled. "It has my parents on edge."

"We've seen a few low-level entities," Tucker said, "But nothing Jack and Maddie or the Red Huntress couldn't take care of." He shot Jazz a meaningful look. Sam didn't understand what the look was for, but she chose not to comment. These two did that a lot, like they had secrets they didn't want to come to light and things they didn't want Sam to know.

Sam could respect that. Despite how the three acted as a group, Sam hasn't actually known them for that long. Or, she hasn't been close to them for that long, that is. Plus, it's not like she didn't have secrets of her own. She'd expect that they wouldn't tell her everything.

"Still though," Sam said, "we haven't seen anything big lately. We're starting to think it means something."

"From what I know about ghosts, it probably does." Jazz's voice lowered considerably and she was quiet for a moment, lost in thought.

"But anyway," Tucker said, breaking Jazz from of her thoughts with a much-needed conversation change. "What brings you to Amity in June? I thought you weren't supposed to be officially done with classes till the end of the month."

Jazz's head snapped to her boyfriend. "I didn't tell you?"

Tucker looked slightly bewildered. He slid his horn-rimmed glasses up the bridge of his nose and he glanced at Sam. "Uh, did she tell you?"

Sam shook her head, confusion evident on her face.

"I didn't tell either of you?!" Jazz was thoroughly baffled now, her head whipping back and forth between the two of them. Jazz shook her head and muttered to herself, "New York to Ohio must've been a longer flight than I thought."

"What didn't you tell us?" Sam asked.

Jazz slid away from Tucker slightly and reached for her purse. She dug around in it before pulling out her wallet. "I found out about this a week ago," she was saying. "It's the first time in a long time it's been close to this side of the country. I knew I needed to go, and I figured you guys did too."

Jazz drew from her wallet three long black slips of paper. She handed one to Sam and one to Tucker. They took them in puzzlement.

Sam brought hers up to her face and read it closely. No, it wasn't in fact a normal black slip of paper. It was a ticket.

Sam's mouth dropped open.

"Jazz." She said slowly, excitement blooming in the pit of her stomach. "Jazz... no way."

Jazz nodded, her big greenish eyes wide in enthusiasm, but now that Sam had a closer look, there was something more there, something darker. It was like Jazz was hiding something big, and she was hiding it well. But Sam had always been good at picking people apart when she wanted to.

"Way." The red-headed college-student said with a tone that Sam couldn't quite decipher.

Tucker's eyes remained level on the black ticket. He seemed frozen and his posture was rigid. His dark-colored face grew pale and he didn't look up when Jazz had spoken. Sam was really starting to question her friend's health before he finally spoke, his words sounding hoarse, like his throat had gone dry. "Circus Gothica..." He stated, his eyes never leaving the ticket. "I-it's... back." His gaze snapped up to Jazz suddenly, and they had a determination within them that Sam hadn't seen in a long time. "And you got tickets."

Jazz didn't say anything, and Sam was starting to realize that maybe they weren't as excited about this new development as she was. Sam, for the first time, was starting to notice the way Jazz had gone unusually pale, and the way Tucker's hands had started to shake.

Sam didn't know what the problem was, or what about Circus Gothica had made both of her friends behave like this, but she suddenly knew one thing for absolutely certain.

Samantha Manson was going to find out.


End file.
